Too many search results; new kind of index?

[Tjebbe van Tijen]

Pardon me when I have overlooked some options, but I fail to limit my search results with the options available SEARCH engine of this very much appreciated forum. As there is such a lot of good questions and even better answers to find and as a forum users wants a specific result from a specific query, I wonder what is wrong with the indexes used by the forum search machine.

My example to illustrate this situation is my search for a method to find some function, operator or workaround to add leading zeros to a text string (replicating a character or string by multiplying it with a variable number is sadly not included in FMP).

Whether I enclose my search words as a phrase between "" or not does not seem to have an effect on the number of results I get. Also it is not clearly indicated if Boolean operators can be used or not. Advanced search gives a too big & ugly page with options for delimiters that do not always seem to operate ....

Concluding: there is a lot to harvest on FM Forums but as a user I do not want to get the whole or a too big harvest in at each search... I want just that one straw or a handful!

[Ocean West]

we are looking in to other methods for searching, until then have you used the google site search?

[Lee Smith]

As Ocean West stated, we all have desired a better search engine, and sometimes the google search can find things better.

Personally, I have had pretty good success using the [color:blue]Plus sign with the words, i.e. [color:blue]+function + operator +leading +zeros, because you can add, or subtract words to improve your search. One of the major problems with our search engine is that it will not find keywords of less then four characters like [color:blue]Let, which is a pretty important word in FileMaker.

However, from your sample:

My example to illustrate this situation is my search for a method to find some function, or workaround to add leading zeros to a text string (replicating a character or string by multiplying it with a variable number is sadly not included in FMP).

I'm not understanding what you are trying to find. If you don't find anything searching, post your question and we can try to answer it, or post some links that can help.

HTH

Lee

Edited February 6, 2010 by Guest